Mobile electronic communication devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, and wireless PDAs (personal digital assistants) are in wide use. Many such mobile electronic communication devices offer core functions such as a contact list, call log, voice mail and so forth, while many high-end models offer advanced functions such as Internet access and messaging services. Currently, most mobile electronic communication devices use a sound or a text message to notify the user that the mobile electronic communication device has received a message. However, these notifications typically do not provide a quick and easy method to determine the senders' identities, nor do they provide an indication of how much time has passed since the mobile electronic communication device received the messages. For example, in some of these existing mobile electronic communication devices, the user must navigate through one or more menus displayed by the mobile electronic communication device to access messages to determine a sender's identity and the time the message was received.